10 Comments

  • Well played, Judge. Well played.

  • I once had to deal with a company that declared that the following equation was proprietary :

    a=F/m

    We laughed them out of the room. It is amazing what company lawyers can decide their people have invented.

  • I once had to deal with a company that declared that the following equation was proprietary :

    a=F/m

    Just out of curiosity, could you explain that to the less-mathematically inclined in the audience?

  • I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain that’s Newton’s Second Law of Motion.

  • It’s Newton’s second law of motion.

    a is the acceleration experienced by an object, F is the force applied to the object, and m is the mass of the object. In words, an object’s acceleration is directly proportional to the force applied to it, and inversely proportional to its mass.

    That help any?

  • I could be wrong, but I’m fairly certain that’s Newton’s Second Law of Motion.

    It’s Newton’s second law of motion.

    a is the acceleration experienced by an object, F is the force applied to the object, and m is the mass of the object. In words, an object’s acceleration is directly proportional to the force applied to it, and inversely proportional to its mass.

    That help any?

    Thank you both. I thought that’s what it was, but then again, I never studied law. Almost… If it had been Ohm’s Law, no problem.

  • I have to guess that the larger the object, not only do you need more force to get it up to speed, but the harder it is to slow down once it is at speed. Further, it takes less force to maintain speed because mass takes over as a stored energy- that you have to keep feeding with force.

    Yeah, I’m kinda following along with the whole “you can’t patent physics” thing.

  • Sorry for not including an explanation. The first law that you learn in most basic physics courses is

    F=ma. (Force= mass x acceleration)

    It is one of the fundamental laws of Newtonian motion. The company re-arranged the equation and claimed that the relationship was proprietary.

  • Ain’t a thing, Rxc. I should have recognized that. Too many shots to the head with 40Kv HEI over the years 😉

    It is funny that a company would have enough chutzpah to try and claim a discovery made over 400 years ago.

  • Picture this:

    Einstein is standing in front of a classroom blackboard.

    On the blackboard he wrote

    E = ma**2 . . . but he crossed it out.

    Below that he wrote

    E=mb**2 . . . but he crossed that out, too.

    Lost in thought, Einstein continues to contemplate the blackboard . . .